Seismic processing operations, such as forward modeling and migration, require the storage of earth model parameters such as velocity, density, anisotropy parameters, etc. For complex modeling problems, optimal storage of earth model parameters requires large amounts of data storage capacity.
Known methods for complex earth modeling problems utilize standard compression methods such as wavelet or JPEG compression. Conventional compression methods, however, were developed largely to minimize the amount of required data storage, and not to maximize the accuracy and computational efficiency of the earth modeling, or to minimize the cost of decompression.
As such, a need exists for optimal compression and decompression of earth model datasets for use in computation. By optimally compressing and selectively decompressing the data, data storage requirements and costs can be reduced while improving computational efficiency.